Purdue University Bindley Bioscience Center - Integrated Screening Technologies

Searching for compounds to produce new or better drugs is like looking for the “needle in a haystack,” with inefficient screening for identification and characterization of effective new drug compounds directly impacting the cost of drug development (now estimated at $800,000,000 to $1 billion). The Integrated Screening Technologies (IST) facility develops high content approaches to very rapidly assess tens of thousands of compounds using multiple techniques. Evaluation of several features more efficiently identifies compounds with potential to be effective new pharmaceuticals. IST expertise provides researchers with capabilities to create new approaches to discover biological, synthetic, and natural compounds that can lead to new drugs. Scientific approaches include drug design and synthesis with novel chemistries; nanomaterials for tagging and imaging drugs and their effects; and metabolomic/proteomic profiling for evaluating response of cells to drugs. Graduate and undergraduate students from many departments, including Chemical Engineering, Chemistry, Medicinal Chemistry & Molecular Pharmacology, Computer Science, and Biological Sciences, commonly participate in research within the IST. IST’s established collaborations with several scientific groups and technology partners represent important opportunities for both on and off campus partners. Collaborative partners have their materials and ideas tested on a large scale, while academic researchers can gain access to materials and information. These collaborations have already produced patented items. The facility is also open to test new company products and instruments. One of IST’s future goals is to recruit partners for the development of the recombinant antibody technology.